It's National Honey Week!

This is the week the British Beekeepers Association choose to promote bees and their importance to the environment and our way of life. Lots of fellow beekeepers will be heading to the National Honey Show to celebrate the honey crop and debate current issues. We’ve had some big events this year, the most news-worthy of them being the arrival of the Asian Hornet – two sightings to date both just north and just south of our apiaries here in Bristol. To me, of equal concern, with Brexit looming ominously, is what effect leaving the EU will have on the temporary ban on neonicotinoids. The British government opposed thi ban in 2013, but it was carried through by the EU. Now we’re leaving, and as the UK government has already allowed limited use of two neonicotinoids, we risk leaving bees unprotected. Let’s hope the research that has clearly shown a link between usage of these new pesticides and bee decline isn’t over-ruled by the agricultural and pesticide pressure groups. Perhaps unsurprisingly, there’s been much secrecy around the pesticide companies own field research. Lots more reading out there if you’re interested, and if you’d like to sign a petition in support of the ban, here’s a link you can follow:

On a more positive note if you’d like to celebrate honey week, I can’t think of a more positive activity than planning some bee friendly planting for next year – here’s a great info sheet from the BBKA website.